This is my opinion, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think it's actually a storm of different factors. Here they are:

1. Reboot. Why reboot Ghostbusters?2. The disappointment that fans were not getting a proper Ghostbusters 3 (Coincides with #1)3. Woman Ghostbusters. Yes, I'm pretty sure this was not just Sony being idiots, there were some people who hated the idea of Woman Ghostbusters...or for that matter, an ALL woman team.4. Once the trailer hit, yes, the group of people who openly thought the movie looked like shit.

I kind of hope that the sexist reaction to ATC was partially just haters grasping onto whatever they could, and that not all of the people who posted sexist comments about the movie were actually being genuine. I know it's unlikely but I think it would be easier to handle. There's no way of knowing now, I just wonder what the response would've been like had they released more promotional material sooner.

It still wouldn't excuse the sexist reaction, but it would be nice to think not all of the sexists were being genuine. I say this since there are still a lot of people hating on the movie, but now that even most of the haters have seen it (even though they said they wouldn't), a lot of the backlash it's still getting has turned to the story/filmmaking/comedic style itself, and not the fact that the cast is all female.

If you spend some time on YouTube, you see the sexism is very real among a certain type of fanboy (and some girls). They say they like women. They decry how oppressed women are in the Middle East. But if they see you as a feminist or SJW, you're a snowflake and a c-word. They make fun of other people's feelings, while demanding everyone else tend to their's. If Aliens came out today, they'd be crying that Ripley does everything while the men whine, "Game over, man!" They'd choose to idolize Milo over even the original Ghostbusters, "because feminism is evil." Such fanboys/girls are garbage people and I have no problem telling them so.

As for the fans who attacked ATC "because reboot," I'd say their priorities are just a bit off. Yes, we would have all preferred a sequel. But to perceive a movie as trying to "insult" you, that is simply not rational. You're a fanatic at that point, not a fan. And you take yourself far too seriously, over a comedy that's supposed to be fun. Same as the fans who attack GB2. You can't claim to be a fan, but then have a freak out everytime the franchise tries something new.

Then there's the reboot fans who don't understand why it was wrong for Reitman amd Aykroyd to be pushed out of the process. They need to educate themselves a bit before joining the fandom.

Then there's the movie itself. You know I enjoyed it. But it is more of a B+ than an A+. Aykroyd's ideas may be unusual, but the studio was foolish to ignore them completely. There's no denying the success of that first movie (and I don't just mean financial). And Feig should learn how to work with male characters as well as female. He can't do the same thing forever. To be fair, maybe the studio put him in an awkward, defensive position, when they picked him over Reitman and Aykroyd. Maybe a lot of this was Pascal's fault. She certainly didn't show great judgement with those Obama emails.

Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that it is real. I'm just thinking that some fans were so bent out of shape over the reboot that they were hating on whatever they could get their hands on, and maybe aren't the belligerent sexists they came off as. Far fetched, I know.

Sav C wrote:Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that it is real. I'm just thinking that some fans were so bent out of shape over the reboot that they were hating on whatever they could get their hands on, and maybe aren't the belligerent sexists they came off as. Far fetched, I know.

I might agree that, aside from said garbage people, some fans were just frustrated and shouted "Boo Lady Ghostbusters!" out of spite.

Another thing, I said ATC is a B+. As in, not an F or a D. And there was no good reason for Bayformers or BvS or Suicide Squad to make more money. The geek community did call this one poorly, IMO.

As for Kevin, I just think he should have had maybe a small moment of redemption. Still, at least Benni got one, I did like him.

My understanding is that Sony's studio departments haven't been making much money of late. Instead of gambling on something new, they decided to revisit an old property and I guess it was easier to get Ghostbusters going rather than a new MiB and they recently failed with Spider-Man.

Seth Rex wrote:2. The disappointment that fans were not getting a proper Ghostbusters 3 (Coincides with #1)

I understand from interviews with Reitman and Aykroyd that they felt, after Mr Ramis' passing, doing a direct sequel without a key creative component either wouldn't work or wouldn't feel right. I get it.

Seth Rex wrote:3. Woman Ghostbusters. Yes, I'm pretty sure this was not just Sony being idiots, there were some people who hated the idea of Woman Ghostbusters...or for that matter, an ALL woman team.

I, for one, have absolutely no issues with women Ghostbusters. I just wish they had been better-written characters. I'm happy to see the influence the movie has had on a generating a new generation of fans, especially with such a high percentage of girls among them. We gotta keep our Ghosthead ranks filled somehow, don't we? I also can't wait to hear 20 years down the road when they reboot the franchise again that one of those girls ended up in a STEAM field because of this movie.

Seth Rex wrote:4. Once the trailer hit, yes, the group of people who openly thought the movie looked like shit.

After having seen the movie a few times, I agree, there could have been 3 or 4 other trailers cut from the film that would have landed better and been a more accurate view of the picture.

Overall, I'll say that I appreciate the swing of "hate" from the cast to the film itself. Don't get me wrong, there are still those who hate the cast, and that bugs me a lot. I don't necessarily agree with or appreciate the comic choices they made in the film, myself either; but I recognise that they are just that: choices. It doesn't mean that the cast are poor actors, or that they're terrible human beings, they just made choices I don't always agree with. I think some of those choice stem from characters that weren't as thoroughly thought-out or well-written enough. Some of them also stem from what "modern" comedies feel is funny these days.

Lastly, I think some of these choices come from the tone of the movie compared to the original. To me, the original featured a quartet of comedians (joined by other actors) playing characters relatively straight (emotionally/comically, not sexuality lol) in a fun horror flick. I feel that's what audiences were hoping for and instead received an orchestra of comedians playing "funny" characters in a comedy that had special effects.

I don't appreciate those who use their dissatisfaction with the choices made as personal attacks on those who made them. I may be opening a can of worms here, but as a relatively new father, I can tell you that there are women who follow "breast is best" and those who choose formula. Neither of them are bad mothers because of this choice. I feel that there are ghostheads who should learn the difference between the choices people make versus the people making them.

Also, to those who take this reboot as a personal attack, or that it somehow destroys the original or your childhood, I'll echo a statement that I've heard often with reboots: go look on your shelf, is the original movie still there? Yes? Then the original is still intact. Did the movie somehow go back in time and kill the family dog you had as a kid? No? Then your childhood isn't ruined.

I highly recommend to everyone that you go out and watch all the Highlander movies. Why? Because from those movies, I learned that it can be okay to have movies of conflicting cannon, varying styles, and varying production quality all under the same banner since they all follow the same core principle. Each movie is a different take on a core concept. They aren't all related to each other, and sometimes the content of one conflicts with the content of the others. Sure the latter is a bit annoying, but I find it's been a good lesson for me to learn as a movie watcher.

Yeah I'm not surprised she said this. The stars of these movies seem totally out of the loop as to the reasons people hated the movie. Maybe she needs to be better educated on why it was a bad movie instead of blaming it on the fans for overreacting? Maybe she accidently saw another movie but the movie everyone else saw was a total unfunny mess and that's not the fans fault, that's because they left Mr Pool and a deluded studio president in charge.

JurorNo.2 wrote:If you spend some time on YouTube, you see the sexism is very real among a certain type of fanboy (and some girls). They say they like women. They decry how oppressed women are in the Middle East. But if they see you as a feminist or SJW, you're a snowflake and a c-word.

What I see are idiotic people known as SJWs complaining about why the sun can't be black. This is why the new Doctor Who is female, because of pandering for no reason other to satisfy those with power. The irony is pandering to them is pointless because ultimately they're never happy so you still offend them. For all the talk feminism goes on about they really need to up their game if they want people to take them seriously and be seen as likable.

JurorNo.2 wrote:They'd choose to idolize Milo over even the original Ghostbusters, "because feminism is evil." Such fanboys/girls are garbage people and I have no problem telling them so.

Probably because the alternative is idolize that troll Anita Sarkeesian so this white male has no issues telling people like that where to stick it.

JurorNo.2 wrote:As for the fans who attacked ATC "because reboot," I'd say their priorities are just a bit off. Yes, we would have all preferred a sequel. But to perceive a movie as trying to "insult" you, that is simply not rational.

Let's see how the Star Wars community would react if they rebooted Star Wars: A New Hope. I think it's justified y'know?

JurorNo.2 wrote:And Feig should learn how to work with male characters as well as female. He can't do the same thing forever.

This is why Ghostbusters had female leads. It's like asking a smoker not to have cigars in his movies, he's so addicted it becomes an obsession rather than a requirement.

Kingpin wrote:Another blanket statement that isn't all that accurate, as already proven, there are plenty of folks here and on social media who both enjoyed the reboot and found it funny, even if you didn't.

Is that why it did so well at the Box Office and is is well praised by everybody?

JurorNo.2 wrote:The types of fans you speak of have given me zero reason to side with them over the stars of these movies.

Not all fans you speak of are misogynists. They just don't appreciate social justice pandering for the sake of it.

Oh dear God I'm sure an episode won't go by where the female Doctor doesn't make a misandrist jibe towards males. Moffat already started doing that with the 12th Doctor era. The guy now in charge gave us that delightful episode of Torchwood about sex aliens and exploding hamsters. It'll be terrific he lied.

A series I know nothing about, I'll leave it to those fans to duke it out. And they will. Musn't let a fandom become too positive after all.

What's interesting is I see a ton of men on social media loving the idea, and a ton of women weeping because they can't crush on a female Doctor, lol. Of course they won't say that, they say it's all about preserving some fictional canon, as usual. But from one fangirl to another, you aren't fooling anyone, ladies.

I will say this, whether it's fangirls or fanboys: The more you whine and complain about gender, the more irrelevant you are making yourselves. Like Weaver said, things change. It's not political correctness, it's progress. And kicking and screaming won't stop it.

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pferreira1983 wrote:Is that why it did so well at the Box Office and is is well praised by everybody?

That's irrelevant. Regardless of your own feelings on the matter or how successful it was, you know there are people who enjoyed it. I would appreciate it (and I'm sure the others would as well) if you didn't make a false statement while lumping us into the "dislike" camp.

pferreira1983 wrote:What I see are idiotic people known as SJWs complaining about why the sun can't be black. This is why the new Doctor Who is female, because of pandering for no reason other to satisfy those with power.

I never want to answer this stuff, because it just runs and runs like a cat chasing its tail, but come on - the entire point of feminism and anti-racism and anti-homophobia and trans awareness and everything that gets dismissed as SJW stuff, is to represent those who don't have the power. How on earth is that complicated?

Nobody (apart from poor Leslie Jones) was actually hurt by the new film, and many of us who had been there since '84 absolutely adore it. How can this still be a problem for anyone?! There will be new GB stuff in the original continuity, and likewise GB16 will always exist. I sincerely hope they do an animated movie that draws it all into one canon as Ghostbusters 101 has.

I'm proud 'our' franchise took a stand for progress, I'm proud of the hit it took in exposing the necessity for that progress, and I'm mostly proud that a whole bunch of my real world friends became Ghostheads because of it. It moved them like the five minutes of the Sedgwick footage did me on BBC Screen Test all those years ago. I cannot fathom why anyone would want to take that feeling away from a fellow Ghosthead, new or old.

Last edited by robbritton on July 17th, 2017, 6:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm pretty sure it was the 1963 season--it certainly wasn't the 2005 one.

Since I'm not up on Who news I didn't know what was going on last night when I made my above post. I hit post and then saw the new topic about it, was thought "darn". I hope my above post doesn't seem ignorant admist the brewing controversey.

Lee FW wrote:One thing that's been consistent is how cheap it looks from the colour grading to the sets

Serious question, have you watched any of the classic series Lee? the production levels on the new series are another galaxy compared to the cheap sets of the 1970s and 1980s. In the end though, it's still just the BBC, not something like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon.

Lee FW wrote:I just wish they'd shorten the series and pump a bit more time/money into tightening it up.

The stories are short enough as it is, I'd rather not make them any shorter just to shore up something that we're going to disagree on regarding how flimsy it may look.I'm overall happy with the quality of the sets and colour grading if it means we can have a series of a semi-reasonable length.

Lee FW wrote:Like Ghostbusters those guys who scream and shout about women ruining their stories are preventing constructive criticism from ever being heard.

Okay. Even as much of a fan of the classic series as I am, I probably wouldn't suggest watching much before Jon Pertwee because the show was still finding itself (though there are some stories I think should be watched). Give Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker's runs a try, if you like those then I'd definitely recommend Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy.

On Sunday the 13th actor to portray the Doctor was announced, and it was revealed to be Jodie Whittaker (from Broadchurch and Attack the Block), who will be the first women to officially portray the role (Joanna Lumley unofficially portrayed the Doctor in a 1990s comedy skit).

Although some fans are excited by this development, others, like with the Ghostbusters reboot, aren't happy at all.

I'm a member of several nerdy Facebook groups, including a few Doctor Who ones. I've checked the stats, and I'm happy to report the following.

The average "A warm welcome to #13"-type post seems to garner about 700ish reactions. Of that 700, about 600 are a combination of Likes and Hearts. There's about 60 Angry faces and a few handfuls of the other reactions. The number of comments varies somewhat wildly, but of those angry fans, only about 5-10 take the time to voice their "dissatisfaction" beyond a single click/tap.

In easier terms, about 90% of fans are positive about the change. Roughly 10% are pissed off and only 1-2% are angry to the point of commenting.

I, for one, love the change. The show is often about change and the one thing that hasn't changed in nearly 40 seasons is the gender of The Doctor (which has been hinted had since the middle-Classic era). I've found much of Mr. Moffat's writing to be "'Why?' 'Because arbitrary reason***.' *moving on*" and, in my opinion, it's getting stale. Mr. Chibnall is responsible for a widely respected show. I feel he's got the chops to carry the show and I can't wait to see what he and Ms. Whittaker have in store for us next season.

***: That arbitrary reason can sometimes be boiled down to Mr. Moffat saying, "because I have the keys to the kingdom and I want it to happen this way." LOL

Chris Brewin wrote:***: That arbitrary reason can sometimes be boiled down to Mr. Moffat saying, "because I have the keys to the kingdom and I want it to happen this way." LOL

That'll be one of the things I will always dislike him for, and characterises his tenure on the program. Whether it's a plothole or he's written himself into a corner, you might suddenly have some madcap section which wallpapers over the cracks he's made in the story. He was a lightweight George Lucas, better when overseen by someone else, but a bit of a hack once he had unfettered control.